For well over a year now, the ACLU has been urging the government to level with the public about the number of civilians that are being killed in its drone strike/targeted killing operations. The government has been tight-lipped — refusing even to confirm or deny the existence of any records relating to civilian casualties in CIA drone strikes. Last month, however, John Brennan, the White House’s top counterterrorism advisor broke this silence, telling reporters that “in the last year ‘there hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.'” (more…)

This week, the American Civil Liberties Union released a letter it received from the Department of Defense confirming that it does not compile statistics on the total number of civilians that have been killed by U.S. unmanned drone aircrafts since September 2001. (more…)